Carhart Books in Order

The Carhart series is a small set of linked Victorian romances about family, reputation, and the ways people protect one another. It begins with a Christmas novella, This Wicked Gift, before moving into the full-length novels Proof by Seduction and Trial by Desire. The books are connected through the Carhart family and can be read in order for the clearest view of those relationships.

The first story follows Lavinia Spencer, a young woman trying to keep her struggling family afloat, and William White, a man with his own uncomfortable relationship to money and status. It is a compact, emotionally direct prelude that introduces some of the series' interest in class, legal limits, and the bad bargains people are asked to make when they have few options.

Proof by Seduction shifts to London and introduces Gareth Carhart, the Marquess of Blakely. Gareth trusts evidence, logic, and his own judgment. Jenny Keeble survives by working as a fortune-teller, even though she knows exactly how carefully constructed her act is. Gareth sets out to prove she is deceiving his vulnerable cousin, Ned, but his plan gets messier as he learns who Jenny is and what she has risked to build a life of her own.

Science meets a very stubborn fortune-teller.

The final novel, Trial by Desire, centers on Ned Carhart and his estranged wife, Kathleen. On the surface, Ned's return after years abroad should be a private marital problem. Kathleen, however, has built a secret life helping women escape violent husbands, and his arrival threatens both her work and the fragile peace she has made for herself. Their reconciliation asks difficult questions about abandonment, trust, mental health, and what a marriage can become after it has gone badly wrong.

These are historical romances, but the conflicts are not limited to balls and titles. Milan pays attention to economic pressure, domestic danger, and the uneven rules faced by women without money or powerful relatives. The settings include drawing rooms, back streets, workplaces, and homes where respectability can be more fragile than it looks.

The series is short, but it has a strong sense of continuity. Gareth and Ned's cousin relationship links the central novels, while supporting characters and past choices carry forward. Start with This Wicked Gift if you enjoy a brief seasonal entry point, or begin with Proof by Seduction if you want the main story first. Either route leads to a set of romances where love requires more than chemistry. It requires honesty, courage, and room to choose a different future.